14 - eventide

here's another author i could read and read and read. i think i only have one more of his books to dig into, though, so hopefully he writes some more . . .

i'm at a loss in how to describe why i love haruf's books so much. his writing is completely different than anything else i read. i think part of my attraction to his stories is the connection i feel to where they are set. holt, colorado is so similar to the kansas town that my family is from. (there's even a duckwall's!) so it's easy for me to picture everything in my head. i'm not going to lie eventide is a pretty heavy book. haruf packs a lot of drama into books that don't look like they have much to them. but in the midst of all of that drama, you really get to see genuine compassion haruf has for his characters'.


that's weak, yall. i'm sorry. maybe i'll come back and write more on this one at another time because i really really really really loved this book.

13 - the new yorkers: a novel

it took me forever to read this book. who knows what the fines are that i have wracked up at my local library . . . i'm not so good at remembering to renew things. anyway. this was a different kind of book than what i was expecting. i like novels that are told from several perspectives, so i liked it on that level. dogs play a huge role in the story and you know what pets as main characters can lead to, right? yeah. so let's just say there were some tears and quite a few cuddles with my own pup.

12 - i heard that song before

it's been a good long while since i read a book by mary higgins clark. one summer back in college, i think that is all i read. i grabbed this book the other day while i was waiting on my flight back from kc. i love the kc airport's easy-to-get-around airport, but i must admit the literary selection is quite lacking. so i ended up with i heard that song before. overall, it was a pretty good little mystery. i get really irritated with books that are mostly broken up into 3-page chapters, like this one did. so, it did seem to go on forever. but . . . i'm done now, so i can finally finish up some other books that are waiting for me.

p.s. i tried to read alice sebold's latest book, the almost moon. rarely do i start a book and put it down because i am bothered by it . . . usually i keep reading. i couldn't do that with the almost moon. i made it through chapter one on saturday and then closed. i doubt i will go back to it. i'm sure it's a fabulous story - the lovely bones is a story i still remember - but the first chapter disturbed me so much that i just can't finish the rest.

11 - just listen

it took me too long to discover sarah dessen's books. in fact, i purposefully ignored them because i thought they would be too cheesy and girly. where i got this idea, i have no idea. it took my cousin, joy, telling me that i absolutely HAD to read just listen when it first came out. those of you who know joy, know that she is always right. her leading me in SD's direction was just another example of the always being right thing.

so now, i pretty much worship sarah dessen. not in like a creepy way. just in like a i think we would be fast friends if we ever met way. (she spells her name with an 'H' and loves friday night lights and the office and sephora. AND AND AND she LOVES college basketball! um. hello? me too! and noooooo, i don't know these things because of the whole creepy thing. she blogs pretty consistently.)

back to my point. just listen was my first and probably still my favorite of her books. the music discussions all the way through this book make me think of so many moments from my own life. it came out in paperback this last week, so of course i had to get it to read, which pretty much made for a perfect day at the park on saturday afternoon with my pup and 80 degree weather and the start of browner legs and a touch of pink on my cheeks still today. now, i'm really in a dessen mood, so i'll probably end up rereading her other books over the next month. but, that'll have to wait because i put my 'collection' out in my classroom today and all but ONE of the books disappeared for DEAR time and ALL of the girls who picked them up wanted to keep reading them on their own.

just one more reason sarah dessen rocks.